The Surratts must be white-washed before the Catholic Church can clear
its skirts. The documentary evidence pertaining to this tragedy has
been so carefully and completely removed from the public eye that they
feel it safe now to openly refer to the death of Lincoln. But for years
his name never passed the lips of either the priests or the press of
Rome!
With a desire to get at the truth we have made a study of these two characters.
There is much to convince the fair-minded investigator that John Wilkes
Booth had been a pervert to the Roman Church. The evidence in both the
trials of the conspirators and John H. Surratt shows that Booth was
frequently at Mass in various Roman Churches. The fact that he wore an Agnus Dei bronze medal at the time of his death which was taken from his neck by Surgeon General Barnes as his body lay on the Montauk,
which had become corroded from the moisture of his body showed long
wear. Only three weeks prior to the murder as Rear Admiral Baird tells
us, he met Booth coming out of a Vesper Service at a Roman Church in
Washington. This alone of course would not be conclusive, but taken
together with other evidence strengthens the conclusion, that he was
not only a professed Romanist, but that he was a devout one.
The close associates of Booth from his arrival in Washington from
Montreal the middle of November 1864, until his flight after the
murder, were fanatical Romanists. His first visit the next day after he
registered at the National Hotel was to the little Roman Church at St.
Mary's near Bryantown. He had attended Mass
and presented his credentials to the Roman Catholics, Drs. Queen and
Mudd; was entertained by them and inquired for the whereabouts of John
Surratt on that occasion, whom he met shortly afterwards in Washington
and became a constant, almost daily, visitor at the Surratt home on H
street which was the meeting place of the Romish priests of Washington
and vicinity.
The complete confidence which existed between Booth and the Surratts,
in the mind of the writer, is sufficient evidence that these schemers
were taking no chances on any heretic.
The fact that every member of this household was a Romanist and
undoubtedly a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle further
confirms this belief. Having absorbed the Jesuit psychology during my
early girlhood training, and understanding the peculiar tie that binds
all devout Romanists together, there is not the slightest doubt in my
mind but that John Booth was not a full-fledged pape.
Add to this the fact that Booth himself had taken the Jesuitized oath
of the Order of the Knights of the Gold Circle, given in full in this
book, which no honorable or sincere Protestant's conscience would
permit him to blacken his soul with, and we have another link in the
chain of circumstantial evidence. He was under the influence of the
small group of Confederate leaders in Montreal, who in turn were the
most abject tools and associates of the French priests in that city.
Considering these and other things we will be justified in concluding
that if John Wilkes Booth was not a professed Romanist, he might as
well have been and most certainly he was nothing else.
There is no professed Catholic assassin in all history, within the
writer's knowledge who was a more effectual dupe of the priests of Rome
and their lay agents than this once brilliant, care free, talented
young man whose most distinguishing characteristic, barring his kindly
courtesy, was his reverence and devotion to his mother.
Without wishing to excuse or condone the cruel, cowardly act which
snatched Abraham Lincoln away from us at the moment when his great
wisdom, kindliness, and broad charity would have guided the
re-construction as no other could, but the aim is to call attention to
the instigators, higher up—the priests of Rome who were accessories
both before and after the fact, and who have always escaped without
even censor or suspicion, leaving their tools to pay the price!
Booth was chosen for this bloody deed with keen discernment and fine
discrimination by these ecclesiastical plotters against this
government. That he was a young man without much depth of character is
to be conceded, for they do not seek strong characters to execute these
wicked and dangerous deeds. No doubt the Jesuits followed Booth for
months, studying him, finding his most vulnerable point, delving into
his very soul, before they decided to cast on him the leading role.
There were many advantages in his selection. His profession and the
well-known loyalty of the Booth family to the Government placed him
almost above suspicion. His knowledge of changing his appearance, his
expertness in the use of firearms, horsemanship, fencing, etc., his
pronounced personal magnetism and easy, graceful manner and above all
his childlike vanity without egotism, all tended to, from their
standpoint make him an ideal victim of their subtle influence. One
other point: Booth, even if he had no previous idea of the
responsibility or knowledge of the oath he was to take when he entered
the Golden Circle, must have fully realized after, that had he failed
to carry out instructions after he had drawn the fatal blank, it meant
his own certain death.
Geniuses are usually so absorbed in the line of work in which their
gift inclines them, that they are often easy victims of stronger
designing or unscrupulous minds, and the dramatic instinct in this
unfortunate young man would tend to make him particularly susceptible
to the weird ceremonies, garbs, etc., of the Roman Church and its
psychology.
Booth, by several authors, is charged with entertaining this conspiracy
of murder and destruction from a monetary object. The value of a dollar
does not go hand in hand with talent or genius. If so, it is the
exception to the rule and John Wilkes Booth was not an exception.
Actors make their money easily and quickly and the rule is that they
let it go as easily; their improvidence is proverbial. I believe it is
unjust to attribute Booth's part in this affair to a mercenary motive
and am inclined to think that he very probably used much of his own
money during his operations. The several genuine oil speculations in
which he was the loser, shows him to have been short on business
qualifications and the E Z mark in that respect which characterized the
members of the profession in his day.
That John H. Surratt on the contrary, was mercenary and that money held
a high place in his estimation is plentifully evidenced. He talked
about the large sums of money he expected to get and repeatedly boasted
to Weichmann and displayed the large bills and twenty-dollar gold
pieces in his possession while carrying on the Secret Service work in
his trips between Richmond, Washington and Canada . . . . He began to
dress expensively and it was because of his ultra-fashionable
appearance that the attention of the tailor, Reed, was attracted to him
on the fatal Good Friday as he waked down Pennsylvania Avenue from the
National Hotel.
It was his habit to show his money and talk of it to his friends in a
boastful way. The testimony of St. Marie shows that he was still given
to this while a member of the Pope's Army.
The difference in the filial devotion and the lack of it is very
pronounced between these two young men. Surratt's immediate flight to
Canada the morning after the tragedy at Ford's Theatre, where he had
directed and "called the time," where he remained in safety under the
care of the Roman priests La Pierre and Boucher, during his mother's
arrest, trial, conviction and execution; his heartless desertion of his
mother and only sister, is unparalleled as the most concentrated
selfishness and base ingratitude and the only charitable thing to be
said, is that it was due greatly to his theological training—or it
might have been owing to the espionage of his priestly protectors.
GEN. T.M. HARRIS "NAILS" PRIEST WALTERS' ATTEMPT TO WHITEWASH MRS. SURRATT.
The review of the Trial of John H. Surratt made by Gen. T.M. Harris who
was a member of the Military Court Martial which tried and convicted
the four conspirators and sentenced four others to the Dry Tortugas,
was written in response to the charges of Mrs. Surratt's confessor, the
pastor of St. Patrick's Roman Church, Washington, D.C., who had dared
to raise his voice in defense of this woman twenty-seven years after
her execution. General Harris' book, the only one of its kind, has so
effectually and completely nailed
the ecclesiastical liar that it has been removed from most of the
Public Libraries throughout the country on account of its contents.
Because it has gone out of print and because it is not accessible to
the readers, I am incorporating the whole chapter on "FATHER WALTER"
page 204, for the benefit of my readers, below. And now I quote from
the General's book:
"From the time of the trial of the conspirators by a military
commission, and of the execution of Mrs. Surratt by the order of
President Johnson, Father Walter, a secular priest of Washington City,
has made himself conspicuous by his efforts to pervert public opinion
on the result of the trial of the conspirators by the Commission.
Whilst rebel lawyers, editors and politicians have bodily assailed the
lawfulness of the Commission and have denounced it as an
unconstitutional tribunal, and have characterized the trial as a star chamber
trial, as a contrivance for taking human life under a mockery of a
judicial procedure, with no purpose of securing the ends of justice,
Father Walter and other priests whose sympathies were with the Southern
Confederacy have earnestly seconded their efforts by the invention and
circulation of cunningly devised falsehoods.
"Father Walter has every now and then bobbed up with the assertion of
Mrs. Surratt's entire innocence. Knowing that not one in a thousand of
our people have ever read the testimony on which she was convicted, he
feels that he can boldly assert, 'There was not enough evidence against
her to hang a cat.' He has also become bold enough to state as facts
what the evidence shows to be falsehoods. As an example of this: In an
article in the Catholic Review
he asserts in regard to Mrs. Surratt's trip to Surrattville on the
afternoon of the day of the assassination that he had ordered her
carriage for the trip, which was purely on private business, on the
forenoon of that day, and before it was known that the President would
go to the theatre. Why, if this was true was it not proven in her
defense? There was no such testimony produced. The testimony on this
point against her was that shortly after two o'clock on that afternoon
she went upstairs to Weichmann's room, tapped at the door, and when it
was opened she said to Mr. Weichmann, 'I have just received a letter
from Mr. Calvert that makes it necessary for me to go to Surrattville
today and see Mr. Nothey. Would you be so good as to get a conveyance
and drive me down? Upon Weichmann's consenting to do so, she handed him
a ten dollar bill with which to procure a conveyance. Surely, there is
no evidence here that a carriage had been ordered already, as Weichmann
was left free to procure a conveyance where he might see fit.
"Weichmann went downstairs, and as he opened the front door, he saw
John Wilkes Booth, who was in the act, as it were, of pulling the front
door bell. Booth entered the house.
"When young Weichmann returned, after having procured the buggy, he
went up to his own room after some necessary articles of clothing, and
as he again descended the stairs and passed by the parlor doors he
observed that Booth was in the parlor conversing with Mrs. Surratt. In
a little while Booth came down to the front door steps and waved his
hand in token of adieu to Weichmann, who was standing at the curb.
"When Mrs. Surratt came and was in the act of getting into the buggy,
she remembered she had forgotten something, and said, 'Wait a moment,
until I go and get those things of Mr. Booth's.' She returned from the
parlor with a package which was done up in brown paper, the contents of
which the witness did not see, but which was afterwards shown to have
been the field glass which Booth carried with him in his flight. This
glass Booth sent to Lloyd by Mrs. Surratt, with a message to have it,
with the two carbines and two bottles of whiskey, where they would be
handy, as they would be called for that night. Lloyd swore that this
was the message delivered to him by Mrs. Surratt in the private
interview she sought with him in his backyard on his return home that
evening, and that in accordance with these instructions he delivered
them to Booth and Herold about midnight that night.
"Now, let us see about the private business on which she professed to
be going, and on which she claimed at her trial that she went. The
letter from Mr. Calvert was a demand for money that she owed him, and
was written at Blandensburg on the 12th of April. On the afternoon of
the fourteenth she presented herself to Weichmann and claimed that she
had just received it. It would seem very strange that it took this
letter two days to reach her at a distance of only six miles. She
claimed that she must go and see Mr. Nothey who owed her and get money
from him to pay her debt to Mr. Calvert. Mr. Nothey lived five miles
below Surrattsville, and as she claimed that she had just received Mr.
Calvert's letter, it was impossible that she could have made any
arrangement with Nothey to meet her at Surrattsville that day. She did
not meet him there, neither did she go to his house to see him. When
she arrived at Surrattsville she took Weichmann into the parlor at the
hotel and asked him to write a letter for her to Nothey, which he did
at her dictation; and this she sent to Mr. Nothey by Mr. Bennett Gwinn,
a neighbor of his who happened to be passing down.
"Now, in view of all these facts, can any one see how her private
business was in any way subserved by her trip to Surrattsville on that
afternoon? She could as easily have written to Mr. Nothey from
Washington as from Surrattsville. A postage stamp, a sheet of paper and
an envelope would have saved her six dollars, the cost of her trip, and
would have served her business just as well. The truth is that this
talk of going on private business of her own was all a fabrication,
first to deceive Mr. Weichmann as to the object of her trip, and then
to be used, should it become necessary, in her defense. We have already
seen what her real business was.
"Father Walter falsifies again in the article referred to saying that
she did not see Lloyd on that afternoon, but delivered the things to
her sister-in-law, Mrs. Offutt. Both Lloyd and his sister-in-law
testified to her interview with him in his backyard, and Lloyd
testified as to what passed between them on that occasion.
"It would seem that Father Walter is going on the theory that we have
gotten so far past the time, and that the testimony has been so far
forgotten that he can foist upon the public any statement that he may
please to fabricate. We would kindly remind the reverend Father that no
ultimate gain can be derived from an effort to suppress the truth.
Neither can it be obliterated by our prejudices. We may misconstrue
facts, but we cannot wipe them out by a mere stroke of a pen; and a
fact once made can never be recalled. But I am not done yet with this
Father. He prefaces his article in the Review
with the statement that he heard Mrs. Surratt's last confession and
that whilst his priestly vows do not permit him to reveal the secrets
of the confessional, yet from knowledge in his possession he is
prepared to assert her entire innocence of this most atrocious crime.
He means that we shall understand that were he at liberty to give her
last confession to the world, he would say that she then and there
asserted her entire innocence.
"Will Father Walter deny that under the teachings of the Roman Catholic
church he had an absolute right, with her consent, to make her
confession public on this point? Nay, more, could not Mrs. Surratt have
compelled him to do so in vindication of her good name, and of the
honor of the church of which she was a member? And having this consent,
was it not his most solemn duty to proclaim her confessed innocence in
every public way through the press and even from the very steps of the
gallows?
"Why was not that confession made public?
"Why was it not reduced to writing and signed with her own hand?
"Why has it not, in its entirety, been given to the world?
"Why must the public wait twenty-seven years, and instead of having the
full confession, be required to content itself, in so great a case,
with a mere assertion from the reverend Father, based on his alleged
knowledge? Aye, just there's the rub!
"That confession of Mrs. Surratt's would have proved very interesting
reading, and might have let in a flood of light on some of the places
that are now very dark; it would, indeed, have shown how far Mrs.
Surratt was involved in the abduction and assassination plots and to
what degree she was the willing or unwilling tool of her son, and of
John Wilkes Booth. That confession would have shown the object of
Booth's visit to her on the very day and eve of the murder. It would
have explained what she had in her mind when she carried Booth's field
glass into the country and told Lloyd to have the 'shooting-irons' and
two bottles of whiskey ready on that fatal night of the fourteenth of
April. And if she did not explain satisfactorily every item of
testimony, which bore so heavily against her, then her last confession
was worth nothing.
"Father Walter never had at any time Mrs. Surratt's consent to make her
confession public, and he dare not do so now after twenty-seven years
have elapsed since he shrove his unfortunate penitent.
"Why did Father Walter not do this? He was interesting himself very
much in her behalf in trying to get her a reprieve; why did he hot use
this as an argument with the President in her behalf, that in her final
confession she asserted her innocence? Why did he wait until the
sentence had been confirmed by the President and a full Cabinet without
a dissenting voice, and then had been carried into execution, before he
put into circulation the story of her confessed innocence? And why does
he refer to his priestly vows as his excuse for this conduct, when he
knows full well that having gained Mrs. Surratt's consent to make her
confession public as an entirety, these vows imposed upon him no such
restrictions? In vindication of the Commission and also the Court
Review—the President and his Cabinet—we submit that the evidence shows
her to have been guilty, no matter what she might have said, in her
final confession.
"Perhaps she had been led to believe that President Lincoln was an
execrable tyrant, and that his death was no more than that of the
'meanest nigger in the army.' Her remarks to her daughter the night her
house was searched indicate the views she took of the subject. 'Anna,
come what will, I am resigned. I think that Booth was only an
instrument in the hands of the Almighty to punish this wicked and
licentious people.'
"To one who could have taken this view of the case, Booth's act could
not have been regarded as a crime; and she who rendered him all the aid
she could would feel no guilt. They were only co-operating with the
Almighty in the execution of vengeance. On the trial of John H.
Surratt, Mr. Merrick brought Father Walter on the stand and asked him
if he heard the last confession of Mrs. Surratt, to which the Father
answered. 'I did, I gave her communion on Friday and prepared her for
death.'
"Mr. Merrick in his argument before the jury said: 'I asked him 'Did
she tell you as she was marching to the scaffold that she was an
innocent woman?' I told him not to answer that question before I
desired him to. He nodded his head, but did not answer that question,
because he had no right, as the other side objected.'
"Now, what was the object of all this? Mr. Merrick brought the Father
on to the stand and asked him a question that had not the slightest
relevancy to any issue before that jury. He knew, of course, that the
prosecution would object, and that the question could not be answered.
It was a direct question and could have been answered by 'She did,' or
'She did not.' Why does not the Father answer at once? He had been
cautioned not to do so until desired, and so he waits for the
prosecution to object and stop him from answering the question. Mr.
Merrick, however, in his argument, assumes that the Father stood ready
to say that:
"'She solemnly declared her innocence to me in her last confession,'
"and throws the responsibility on the other side for not getting this answer. The argument was this:
"'You see that Father Walter stood ready to testify to this fact, but the prosecution objected, and so he could not do it.'
"Now, what has become of the Father's priestly vows, behind which he
has always been hiding? Or was all this a mere piece of acting, to give
the counsel a point from which to denounce the government, the
Commission, and all who were concerned in visiting justice upon the
assassins?
"We believe it to be true that the laws of his church do not forbid him
to make public, with her consent or command, her last confession on
this point, and that the Father in making the statements he does at
this late day is simply practicing sleight of hand upon the public. It
is a very strange circumstance, too, that whilst Payne, Arnold,
O'Laughlin, Atzerodt, and even John H. Surratt, admitted their
connection with one or the other of the conspiracy plots, Mrs. Surratt
has not left one word or line after her to explain away the
incriminating evidence brought against her. The reason is plain; she
could not have explained anything without involving herself and her son
and giving away the whole case.
"For twenty-six years Father Walter and his rebel coadjutors have kept
a paragraph going the rounds of the papers, stating as a fact that all
the members of the Commission, but one, are dead, and that they died
miserable deaths, which marked them as the subjects of heavens
vengeance and that some of them perished from the violence of their own
hands, being crazed with remorse.
"The truth is that at this writing, April, 1892, all the members of the
Commission are alive except General Hunter and General Ekin. General
Hunter lived to over four score years and General Ekin to
seventy-three. The present writer is nearly seventy-nine and is still
able to vindicate the truth in the interest of a true history of his
period. Is it not high time that the American people should be fully
informed as to this most important episode in their history, in order
that they may not be misled by men who were not the friends, but the
enemies, of our government in its struggle for its preservation and
perpetuation."
The above statement of facts is sufficient to refute the lying priest
Walter and block the Roman Church's mad efforts to subvert this damning
evidence of its own participation in Lincoln's murder.
OTHER TESTIMONY OF THE SURRATTS'
CATHOLIC FRIENDS
Testimony of Miss Anna Ward, for the Defense, June 3rd.
"I reside at the Catholic Female Seminary on Tenth Street, Washington.
I have been acquainted with Mrs. Surratt six or eight years. I have not
been very intimate with Mrs. Surratt. She always bore the character of
a perfect lady and a Christian, as far as my acquaintance with her
extends.
"I received two letters from John H. Surratt postmarked Montreal,
Canada, for his mother. I received the second the day of the
assassination . . . . I answered his letters to me, and left them with
his mother as I supposed that she would be glad to hear from him. I
have not seen him since."
This Miss Ward, by the way, was twice brought into the trial,
sufficient participation, it might seem, to involve her in conspiracy.
Mr. Weichmann testified that in March, 1865, Surratt invited him to
accompany him to the Herndon Hotel to see about securing a room. When
they arrived Surratt called for the housekeeper, a Mrs. May Murray, and
asked her to have the room in readiness for the man, not mentioning the
name, whom Miss Ward a few days previous, had spoken to her about. The
housekeeper seemed not to remember until Surratt further reminded her
that it was "For a delicate gentleman" who was to have his meals served
in his room. With this refreshing she remembered. Surratt then told her
that the gentleman would occupy the room on the following Monday. Later
on, Weichmann met Atzerodt coming along Seventh Street, who told him to
answer to his question as to where he was going, that he was going to
the Herndon House. Weichmann then said, "Is that Payne that is at the
Herndon House?" Atzerodt answered, "Yes."
Then Miss Ward, this Catholic school teacher, was the one who prior to
the crime, had been delegated, to establish an alibi for John H.
Surratt by calling at the Surratt house on the day of the assassination
with a letter which she had purported to have received that day from
John Surratt in Canada. She proffered this information to Louis
Weichmann, who happened to be at home. Weichmann did not read the
letter, which disappeared and was never introduced into the evidence.
Surely, it was a fact worth noting from the amount of evidence, that
Mrs. Surratt, a woman impoverished by the war with no special social
standing should have had the privilege of intimate acquaintance with so
many priests. I give below the verbatim testimony of these reverend
gentlemen as the records show:
REV. B. F. WIGET FOR DEFENSE, MAY 25th.
"I am president of Gonzago College, F Street between Tenth and Eleventh.
"It is about ten or eleven years since I became acquainted with Mrs.
Mary E. Surratt. I know her very well, and I have always heard everyone
speak very highly of her character as a lady and as a Christian. During
all this acquaintance nothing has come to my knowledge respecting her
character that could be called un-Christian.
"I have a personal knowledge of her character as a Christian, but not
as to her character for loyalty. My visits were all short and political
affairs were never discussed; I was not her pastor. I first became
acquainted with Mrs. Surratt from having her two sons with me. I have
seen her perhaps once in six weeks. I cannot say that I remember
hearing her utter a disloyal sentiment, nor do I remember hearing
anyone talk about her being notoriously disloyal before her arrest."
REV. FRANCES E. BOYLE FOR THE DEFENSE, MAY 25th.
"I am a Catholic priest. My residence is St. Peter's Church. I made the
acquaintance of Mrs. Mary E. Surratt eight or ten years ago . . . .
Have always heard her well spoken of as an estimable lady. I do not
undertake to say what her reputation for loyalty is."
REV. CHAS. H. STONESTREET, FOR THE DEFENSE, MAY 26th.
"I am pastor of Aloysius Church in this city. I first became acquainted
with Mrs. Mary E. Surratt twenty years ago. I have only seen her
occasionally since. At the time of his (sic, this?) acquaintance there
was no question of her loyalty."
By the bye, on a recent trip which the author took through the Jesuit
University at Georgetown in the cloister of one of the buildings there
are a number of paintings of Jesuit priests connected with the
institution, among whom I noted one labeled. Rev. Chas. H. Stonestreet.
The reverend gentleman testified that at the time of his acquaintance
there was no question about the lady's loyalty. Certainly not. The
question of loyalty had not arisen twenty years before the
war—evidently this is an example of Mental reservation
of a Jesuit priest. All of them could have said: I never questioned her
loyalty. Mental reservation—(To the Holy Mother Church.)
REV. PETER LANIHAN, DEFENSE, MAY 26th.
"I am a Catholic priest. I reside near Beantown, Charles County, Md. I
have been acquainted with Mrs. Surratt, prisoner at the bar, for about
thirteen years; intimately so, for about nine years. In my estimation
she is a good Christian woman and highly honorable. Have never on any
occasion heard her express disloyal sentiments. I have been very
familiar with her, staying at her house."
In The Doctrine of the Jesuits by Gury, in The Eighth Precept of the Decalogue, page 156, 442-1:
"Is it not permitted to make use of the purely and properly mental
restriction? 443-2. It is sometimes permitted to make use of the
restriction largely; that is to say, improperly mental, and also of
equivocal words, when the meaning of the speaker can be understood . .
. . Besides, the good of society demands that there should be a means
to lawfully hide a secret; now there is no other way than by
equivocation or restriction . . . . One is permitted to use this
restriction even under oath . . . . A culprit interrogated judicially,
or not lawfully, by the judge, may answer that he has done nothing,
meaning: 'About which you have the right to question me.'"
The canon law of the Roman church does not concede the right of any
civil authority to question or cross-question a priest. Not only so,
but the canon law of the Roman church automatically excommunicates any
Catholic layman who would bring a priest into a civil court.
Consequently none of these priests' testimony was worth the paper it
was written on in the matter of truth, and they were at perfect liberty
to swear to anything they chose, or to whatever would seem best for the
interest of the prisoner and their church.
Gury in a footnote quotes Bessius, a Jesuit authority, as follows:
"If a judge interrogates on an action, which must have been committed
without sin, at least a mortal one, the witness and the culprit are not
obliged to answer according to the judge's intention."
REV. N.D. YOUNG, DEFENSE, MAY 26th.
"I am a Catholic priest. I reside at the pastoral home of St.
Dominick's church on the Island and Sixth Street, Washington City. I
became acquainted with Mrs. Mary E. Surratt eight or ten yeas ago. My
acquaintance has not been very intimate. I have occasionally seen her
and visited with her. I had to pass her house about once a month, and I
generally called there—sometimes stayed an hour. I have heard her
spoken of with great praise. She never uttered any disloyal sentiments
to me."
Certainly the above testimony makes the position of Mrs. Surratt and
her church beyond question, but to say that any one of these priests
did not know that she was DISLOYAL TO THE UNION and entertained a deep
hatred for President Lincoln, to whom she, like many others, attributed
the loss of her wealth, might be acceptable to non-Romanists who do not
understand the relation of such a woman to her priest, but certainly no
ex-Romanist could be deceived by it.
TESTIMONY OF THE REV. B.F. WIGET.
Washington, February 28, 1867.
Question: "State your residence and profession."
Answer: "I am connected with the Gonzaga College on F Street, Washington, between Ninth and Tenth."
Question: "How long have you resided in Washington?"
Answer: "With an interruption of four months I have resided here four years."
Question: "Look at this photo (marked exhibit G) and state whether you have known this person from whom it was taken."
Answer: "John H. Surratt, I should think."
Question: Have you known Surratt many years?
Answer: "Many, many years, yes, sir. I knew him when he was about 12 years old. He was one or two years under my tuition."
EXTRACTS FROM THE TESTIMONY OF LOUIS J. WEICHMANN.
"Mrs. Surratt and her family are Catholics. John H. Surratt is a
Catholic and was a student of divinity at the same college as myself. I
met the prisoner, David E. Herold at Mrs. Surratt's house on one
occasion. I also met him when we visited the theatre when Booth played
Pescara; I met him at Mrs. Surratt's in the country in the spring of
1863 when I first made his acquaintance.
"I met him (Herold) in the summer of 1864 at the Piscataway (Roman
Catholic) church. These are the only times to my recollection I ever
met him . . . . I generally accompanied Mrs. Surratt to church on
Sunday. Surratt never intimated to me nor to anyone else to my
knowledge that there was a purpose to assassinate the President. He
stated to me in the presence of his sister shortly after he made the
acquaintance of Booth that he was going to Europe on a cotton
speculation. That three thousand dollars had been advanced to him by an
elderly gentleman whose name he did not mention, residing somewhere in
the neighborhood, that he would go to Liverpool and remain there
probably two weeks to transact his business; then he would go to Nassau
and from Nassau to Matamoras, Mexico, and find his brother Isaac . . .
. His character at St. Charles College, Maryland, was excellent. On
leaving college he shed tears and the president approaching him told
him not to weep, that his conduct had been excellent during the three
years he had been there, and that he would always be remembered by
those in charge of the institution . . . . I had been a companion of
John H. Surratt for seven years (in answer to a question). No, I did
not consider that I forfeited my friendship to him in mentioning my
suspicions to Capt. Gleason. He forfeited his friendship to me by
placing me in the position in which I now stand, testifying against
him. I think I was more of a friend to him than he was to me. He knew I
had permitted the blockade runner at the house without informing upon
him, because I was his friend, but I hesitated for three days; still
when my suspicions of danger to the government were aroused, I
preferred the government to John Surratt. My remark to Captain Gleason
about the possibility of the capture of the President was merely a
casual remark. He laughed at the idea that such a thing could happen in
a city guarded as Washington was."
Mr. Weichmann also testified that on the night of the arrest he
answered the doorbell when the detectives rang it for the purpose of
demanding admittance so that they might search the house. He rapped at
Mrs. Surratt's door and informed her who was at the door and what they
had come for. Her answer was: "For God's sake, let them come in; I have
been expecting them." (See page 394, Trial of Surratt; also
supplemental affidavit of L.J. Weichmann.)
Other comments by Gen. T. H. Harris are as follows:
"When they inquired for her son, she said. 'He is not here: I have not
seen him for two weeks.' This was a sufficient answer, but her guilty
conscience would not let her stop here, she had to add, 'There are a
great many mothers who do not know where their sons are.' Let us ask
ourselves at this point, how many mothers in Washington City at that
hour of that eventful night were lying awake expecting their house to
be searched by detectives? Our inner consciousness will unerringly
dictate the answer, 'Not one who was innocent of crime.' It is only
necessary to say further, in regard to this defense set up of an alibi
that although there is no more common defense resorted to by criminals,
because there is none more easy of establishment, there was never
perhaps in all the history of jurisprudence a weaker and more
unsuccessful effort made to establish it, than in this defense.
"Probably no witness had ever been subjected to the severe grilling
which Louis Weichmann received during these trials, his testimony at
John H. Surratt's trial being precisely the same, and he could not be
shaken by the badgering which the defense's lawyer resorted to. A
lifelong persecution followed in consequence."
During a recent interview the writer had with a relative of his who was
with him during his last illness she said: "No one will ever know the
sadness of Lou's life nor dream of how he was persecuted for simply
telling the truth. The day before he died he motioned for a pencil and
paper and before a witness wrote: 'To All Lovers of Truth, I, Louis J.
Weichmann, being of sound mind and memory, do declare that everything
that I testified to at the trials of Mary E. Surratt and John H.
Surratt, was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so
help me God. (Signed) Louis J. Weichmann.' He died the next day."
The "persecution" was that they accused him of swearing away the life
of an innocent woman who had been a kind friend to him. For many years
Mr. Weichmann was under the protection of the government where he held
a public position in Philadelphia. He was practically excommunicated
from the church although he in later years attended. On the other hand
John H. Surratt, conspirator and assassin, was protected and helped by
the priests up until his death April 22, 1916.
After Surratt's release from prison on a technicality he went to
Rockville, Md., where he delivered a lecture which he prepared with the
ostensible purpose of going on the lecture platform. He only delivered
it once. The public sentiment, even in the South, was strong against
him. He then secured a position in the public school at Montrose, near
Rockville, where he taught several years. The writer, in making the
picture of the Surratt house produced here, had a talk with the present
tenant, a Mrs. Wm. Penn, whose stepmother was a pupil of John Surratt's
while he taught at Montrose. Mrs. Penn has a linen pocket handkerchief,
hemstitched, with the name Surratt
embroidered in large script letters across the comer of it, which her
step-mother, a Mrs. A.M. Higgins, was given by the owner, John H.
Surratt. Some years later he secured a lucrative position with a
Baltimore steamship company where he remained until just a short time
before his death. He left a widow and several grown children, one of
whom, William, is an attorney in the "Monumental" city.
On looking up the death notices some months ago when the writer was in
Baltimore for that purpose, the protection of the Catholic church was
shown by the information that a High Requiem Mass was to be said for
the deceased and that the funeral would be private, interment would be
at Bonnie Brae. As a matter of fact, the body was brought quietly to
Washington and buried in the family lot at the left side of his mother.
The significance of this probably is that some day in the future the
Roman Catholic church plans to erect a memorial to John Surratt and his
Martyred
mother. In a talk with the superintendent of Mt. Olivet cemetery as we
stood by the graves, he proffered this information, he being himself a
Catholic. "The hanging of this woman was one of the greatest crimes
ever, committed. We would erect a monument to her in a minute, if we
could." I asked him why they did not do it. He said: "We wouldn't dare
now. The feeling for Lincoln is too strong." On pressing the matter
further with him, I found that he had no personal knowledge of the case
and knew nothing but what he had been told by his church.
Before closing this chapter I cannot but call your attention to God's Wondrous ways
of just retribution. Contemplate the small lonely headstone, labeled
merely "Mrs. Surratt" on the outskirts of the Roman Catholic Cemetery
in Washington, the scene of her wicked work and within a gun shot of
the magnificent white marble Lincoln Memorial as it stands overlooking
the Potomac River, erected to the memory of the great American whom she
and her priestly sponsors had tried so energetically to destroy because
he was the living type of the triumph of Popular Government and every
act of his beautiful, clean, upright public life was a stinging rebuke
to the tyrannical, corrupt System, of which Mary E. Surratt, her son
and the other papal assassins were legitimate products!
EXECUTING THE SECRET TREATY OF VERONA
Reverting to the Secret Treaty of Verona, we recall that the "high
contracting parties," on being convinced that the system of
representative government is incompatible with monarchial principles .
. . engage mutually in the most solemn manner, to use all their efforts
to put an end to the system of representative government and to prevent
it form being introduced in those countries where it is not yet known.
"Article 2. As it cannot be doubted that the liberty of the press is
the most powerful means used by the pretended supporters of the rights
of nations . . . the high contracting parties promise reciprocally to
adopt all the proper measures to suppress it . . . ."
The process of destruction has gone on steadily from the assassination
of the five presidents in the United States which begun in 1841, and
has continued at intervals, and which finds us without a semblance of a
free press.
After sixty years of activity by these foreign enemies within our borders what do we find?
We find a subversion of free speech; a subversion of a free press; we
find a denial of the right of the American people to peaceable
assemblage; we find the complete separation of Church and State, the
very basis of our form of government being a dead letter; we find the
freedom of conscience being attacked; we find our great IDEA of public
education being viciously undermined and sapped by a great system of
parochial schools wherein are taught the principles of the old concept
of monarchial institutions.
And by whom is this concerted plan of destruction being carried on. principally?
By the priests and lay members of the Roman Catholic Church. Upon what
authority is this work of subversion being operated? By the ex-cathedra
mandates of the Popes of Rome, conveyed to their subjects
in this country through Encyclical Letters. We find that the Roman
Catholics who comprise less than one-sixth of the population, have been
the dominating power in our political affairs and of late years have
headed almost every national, state and municipal office from the
President down to the dog catcher.
During the Wilson administrations the Army, the Navy, the Treasury, the
Secret Service, the Post Office, the Emergency Fleet, Transports,
Printing, Aircraft and dozens of others were presided over by Fourth
Degree Knights of Columbus
The PLUNDERS of Hog Island and the Emergency Fleet under E. N. Hurley
are matters of Congressional Record which mounted up into the millions.
Mr. Hurley is a Roman Catholic and Knight of Columbus.
The Aircraft Scandal under the supervision of
John M. Ryan, ardent Roman Catholic and Fourth Degree Knight of
Columbus, ran into the billions and was also subject of investigation.
Admiral Benson who was advanced in a most unusual and peculiar way by
his sponsor Woodrow Wilson, is a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus and
violated the spirit and the letter of this Republican Government by
accepting a foreign title from the Pope of Rome. Admiral Benson is a
member of the Household
of this alien ruler, who never has ceased to claim his right to
temporal power for one moment since he was forced to relinquish it by
the Italian People, Sept. 20, 1570.
This disloyal act has never been rebuked by the American people whom Admiral Benson is supposed to represent. Knighthood
is not a spiritual acquisition, nor was it bestowed as such. It is a
foreign title given in recognition of his service to the Pope of Rome
who claims temporal sovereignty and allegiance from his subjects in
every country. One of the aims of the Knights of Columbus is to restore
the temporal power of the Pope.
The presence of these laymen of the Romish Church in our public offices
is not accidental or incidental. They are there by the express command
of their Pope, whom they are obliged to Obey "as God Himself." (See Leo
XIIIth's Great Encyclicals, page 192.)
Roman Catholics are serving under a Citizenship diametrically opposed to American citizenship.
American Citizenship is based upon the contention that the only authority to rule must come from the consent of the governed.
Roman Catholic citizenship is based upon the negation of this. Leo XIII has this to say:
"The sovereignty of the people, however . . . is held to reside in the
multitude; which is doubtless a doctrine exceedingly well calculated to
flatter and inflame the many passions, but which lacks all reasonable
proof, and all power of insuring public safety and preserving order."
(page 123)
LIBERTY OF SPEECH AND PRESS
"So too, the liberty of thinking, and of publishing whatsoever each one
likes, without hindrance . . . is the fountain head and origin of many
evils." (page 123)
"The unrestrained freedom of thinking and openly making known one's
thoughts is not inherent in the rights of citizens, and is by no means
reckoned worthy of favor or support." (page 126)
"We must now consider briefly liberty of speech, and liberty of the
press. It is hardly necessary to say that there can be no such right as
this . . . ." (page 151)
"If unbridled license of speech and writing be granted to all, nothing will remain sacred and inviolate." (page 152)
So you see the Pope denies today the right to think. The Romanists of
this country are obliged to obey and inculcate these treasonable
principles. It is because of this citizenship that the Roman Church has
established its gigantic parochial school system.
ATTEMPTING TO DESTROY THE FREE PRESS
FITZGERALD BILL (H.R. 6468)
On December 17, 1915, Roman Catholic Representative John J. Fitzgerald.
Knight of Columbus, of Greater New York introduced the following Bill:
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America, in Congress assembled, that whenever it shall be
established to the satisfaction of the Postmaster General that any
person is engaged, or represents himself as engaged in the business of
publishing any obscene or immoral books, pamphlets, pictures, prints,
engravings, lithographs, photographs, or other publications, matter, or
thing of an indecent, immoral, or scurrilous character, and if such
person shall, in opinion of the Postmaster General, endeavor to use the
Post Office for the promotion of such business, it is hereby declared
that no letter, packet, parcel, newspaper, book, or other things sent
or sought to be sent through the Post Office, or by or on behalf, of or
to, or on behalf of such person, shall be deemed mailable matter, and
the Postmaster General shall make the necessary rules and regulations
to exclude such non-mailable matter from the mails."
The Record shows that Holy Names Societies of the Roman Catholic Church
immediately became active and sent to their Representatives many
petitions urging the enactment of these measures into laws.
"Liberty, then, as we have said, belongs only to those who have the
gift of reason or intelligence." (Leo XIII the Great Encyclicals, page
137.)
And the priests claim the right to be the judge of those who would have the "Gift of reason or intelligence."
Roman Catholic citizenship is inimical to American citizenship. Roman
Catholic citizenship is represented by the confessional box. American
citizenship is represented by the BALLOT BOX.
ATTEMPTING TO DESTROY THE FREE PRESS
GALLIVAN BILL (H. R. 13778)
On March 27, 1916, Roman Catholic Representative James A. Gallivan of Boston, introduced the following:
"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America, in Congress assembled, that the Postmaster General
shall make the necessary rules and regulations to exclude from the
mails those publications, the avowed and deliberate purpose of which is
to attack a recognized religion, held by the citizens of the United
States or any religious order to which citizens of the United States
belong."
In January, 1915, Representatives Fitzgerald and Gallivan had each
introduced a Bill substantially identical with the Fitzgerald Bill
herein before set out. At the hearing on those Bills before the House
Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, Roman Catholic
Representative James P. Maher, of Greater New York, stated frankly that
the Bills had been introduced to shield sixteen million Roman Catholics
and twenty thousand Roman Catholic priests from public criticism, by
excluding, The Menace, the Yellow Jacket, and similar publications from the mails.
The above un-American citizens sponsored these Bills on the explicit
instructions of their Church. Leo XIIIth commands them thus:
Furthermore, it is in general fitting and salutary that Catholics
should extend their efforts beyond this restricted sphere (Municipal
politics) and give their attention to national politics . . . . While
if they hold aloof this would tend to the injury of the Catholic
religion, forasmuch, as those would come into power who are badly
disposed towards the Church, and those who are willing to befriend her
would be deprived of all influence. (page 131)
These laymen, tools of the Romish Church would strangle our Press to
prevent criticism of their religion and 20,000 bachelor fathers!
LEO XIII ON LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE
"Another liberty is widely advocated, namely the liberty of conscience.
If by this is meant that every one may, as he chooses, worship God or
not, it is sufficiently refuted by the arguments already adduced."
(page 155)
"Hence follows the fatal theory of the need of separation of Church and State." (page 155)
"From this teaching, as from its source and principle flows that fatal
principle of the separation of Church and State." (page 159)
"From what has been said, it follows that it is quite unlawful to
demand, to defend or to grant unconditional freedom of thought, of
speech, of writing, or of worship." (page 161)
And now let us see how well the Roman Catholic Church requires its
members to observe and accept the above concentrated treason to our
POPULAR GOVERNMENT.
The strangulation of a Free Press in this country is to be completed
through legislation. We call your attention to the three Bills which
the Knights of Columbus have been trying to engineer through for the
past seven years under the photographs of the Pope's Catholic Citizens,
Messrs. Fitzgerald and Gallivan and the papalized Hebrew, one, Isaac
Siegal.
PEACEABLE ASSEMBLAGES DENIED IN THE UNITED STATES
BY ROMAN CATHOLIC MOB RULE
That the right of peaceable assemblage is almost a thing of the past in
this country is proven by the numerous mobs instigated and led by the
priests and Knights of Columbus and their hoodlums in the various
cities from coast to coast.
The reader has seen from the foregoing quotations from the Great
Encyclicals of Leo XIIIth that the right to think and to speak and
liberty of conscience is absolutely prohibitive in CATHOLIC
citizenship. In order to prove to you the existence of this divine
right citizenship; and in order to prove to you that the members of the
Roman Catholic church especially cannot and do not grant liberty of
conscience to Romanists who have left the church, I call your attention
to the following table of mobs and riots carried on by them:
June 12th, 1913, the Protestant people of Oelwein, Iowa, invited Jeremiah J. Crowley, ex-priest and author of The Parochial School: A Curse to the Church and a Menace to the Nation,
to address them in the theatre of that town on the subject of the
public school question. At the instigation of the Roman Catholic priest
of that city who delivered his sermon the Sunday before the Crowley
lecture, some two thousand Romanists led by the Knights of Columbus and
their hoodlums, mobbed Mr. Crowley as he was leaving the theatre with
some of his friends, and beat him severely.
April 14th, 1914, the Rev. Otis Spurgeon of Iowa, who had been called
to deliver a course of lectures by Protestant Americans at Denver,
Colorado, was kidnapped from the Pierce Hotel in that city at eight
o'clock in the evening, bound hand and foot, gagged and a strap placed
around his neck, and was thrown into an automobile parked in front of
the hotel, whisked out into the country and beaten into
unconsciousness. En route his captors told him they were Knights of
Columbus and repeatedly during the trip when he refused to answer or
did not answer as they wished, he was choked by the strap. (Strangulation cord.)
The Rev. Spurgeon was finally rescued, taken to a hospital where he was
found to have sustained internal injuries and lay very ill for three
weeks. The Rev. Spurgeon was a heretic and a Mason.
On Feb. 4th, 1915, Rev. Wm. Black, ex-priest, at that time a
Congregational minister, was delivering a course of lectures, enroute
to the California Coast, where he was to have testified that while he
was a Roman priest and a Knight of Columbus he had taken the Jesuit
oath on the Congressional Record cited heretofore. The Reverend Black
had reached Marshall, Texas, where he was to deliver two lectures. He
gave his first lecture on the public school question in the auditorium
of the City Hall at Marshall, Feb. 3rd. About five o'clock in the
evening on Feb. 4th, Mr. Black and his body guard, a Mr. J.A. Hall,
ex-soldier and expert shot whom he took with him on his trip, were
returning from a walk about the city. On reaching his door four men
standing at the end of the corridor nearby approached him. They asked
if he was Mr. Black and permission to come in and speak with him a few
minutes. The Rev. Black opened the door and invited them in. The
visitors first of all informed him that they were members of the
Knights of Columbus Council of Marshall; that they understood that he
intended to deliver another lecture "against their church" that night.
Mr. Black assured them that they were correct. Then the spokesman, a
prominent attorney, Ryan by name, said, "No you won't. We will give you
just fifteen minutes to pack your suitcase and get out of town." Mr.
Black coolly informed them that he intended to deliver his lecture;
that he would relinquish his American constitutional rights for no man.
On rising from a shoeblacking case where he had been sitting, John
Rogers, a leading architect of that vicinity who had drawn up plans of
the hotel in which they now were, sprang toward him, pinioned his arms
and in shorter time than it takes to tell it, Black's body was riddled
with bullets, and in the melee John Roberts' body fell across that of
Blacks', being also instantly killed. Copeland, a leading banker the
third Knight of Columbus—Catholic citizen—received a wound from which
he will never fully recover and promptly received the consolations of
his church in the corridor, outside the room where they carried him. It
may be of interest to know that the priest was in the lobby of the
hotel when Black and Hall entered to go to their room. Through
political influence, these surviving K.C. participants in this cowardly
assassination went free.
April 6th, 1915, the Rev. Dr. Joseph and Mary Slattery, ex-priest and
ex-nun, of Boston, Mass., were called by Protestant Americans to
deliver some lectures in Chicago, Ill. They were lecturing in a Masonic
hall on the south side of the city. In the early part of Dr. Slattery's
talk a mob of Roman Catholic hoodlums and members of the Knights of
Columbus left their hall which was just across the street, entered the
Slattery meeting and proceeded to start a riot in true Roman style, by
calling Dr. Slattery "a liar." At a signal from a man wearing a Roman
collar from which he drew a handkerchief which had concealed it, the
riot started in earnest. Chairs and furniture were smashed, men and
women were beaten indiscriminately and disfigured by the use of brass
knuckles and black jacks. The telephone wires in the hall and even the
nearby drugstores had been cut and it was fully three-quarters of an
hour before they had any response from the Fourth Degree Knights of
Columbus policeman. The speaker and his wife made a miraculous escape.
The windows of the automobile in which they were driven were shattered
by bullets. These Roman thugs entered street cars, attacked the
passengers who had not been at the lecture and knew nothing about a
riot. They pulled the trolleys off the wires and derailed and
demolished several cars. So much for Roman Catholic citizenship in the
great city of Chicago.
In Haverhill, Mass., April 4th, 1916, these Knights of Columbus and
their hoodlums being summoned for the occasion from neighboring cities
and towns, forced their way into the City Hall where a meeting was
being held by Thos. E. Leyden, who was speaking upon the political
activities of the Roman church in American politics. I will quote the
headlines from some of the Massachusetts papers:
Boston Post:
BIG RIOT RAGES IN HAVERHILL
____________________
MANY BEATEN
MILITIA IS CALLED
_____________________
CITY HALL STORMED BY ANGRY MOBS
_____________________
WHILE REV. THOS. E. LEYDEN WAS HIDDEN
IN THE ALDERMAN'S CHAMBER
_____________________
10,000 IN WILD HAVERHILL RIOTS--MILITIA
CALLED OUT TO SUPPRESS MOB THAT
GETS BEYOND POLICE
______________________
City Hall and Police Station Attacked With Missiles Torn from Streets,
National Club Wrecked and Officer and Civilian Badly Beaten
______________________
EDITORIAL FROM THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCEJOURNAL,
BOSTON, APRIL 21, 1916
______________________
MOB LAW
______________________
The question of free speech is one of such fundamental importance to
humanity that it is easy to understand the commotion which has been
caused in the State of Massachusetts, by the recent riots in Haverhill.
The contention that a mob with or without cause, is at liberty to usurp
the prerogatives of the courts, and to substitute lynch law for
official justice, constitutes, indeed, a precedent destructive of all
popular liberty. The history of liberty is very largely the effort of
authority to restrain license. When the human passions are roused
license is always apt to come to the top.
There is no rhyme or reason in the attack of a mob. It is just as
willing to smash a great invention like the spinning-jenny, for fear of
the displacement of labor, as it is to stuff the mouth of a Foulon with
straw. It is just this that makes the case of the mob in Haverhill so
important. If its action is overlooked, if it is connived at, worse
still if it is justified today, there is no length to which it may not
go tomorrow, and the example set, in Haverhill, may be repeated
elsewhere at the expense of the very views which the Haverhill
exhibition was intended to support.
The simple fact is that the Haverhill mob outraged in the frankest and
most indefensible way the common right of free speech. It is not of the
slightest importance who Mr. Leyden was, what he was going to say, or
what the effect of his words might be. He was entitled to speak, or he
was not entitled to speak. If he was entitled to speak, no mob had any
right to prevent him. If he was not entitled to speak, no mob had any
right to decide the question and to enforce its own decision. In each
event it outraged entirely the rights of free speech, the only
difference is that in one case it outraged it rather worse than in the
other.
RESOLUTIONS OF BAPTIST MINISTRY
The Protestant clergy of greater Boston have registered their protest
against the outrage in no uncertain tones. Perhaps the most notable of
these was the resolutions adopted by the Baptist ministers of greater
Boston on April 10th. They were read by Professor F. L. Anderson of
Newton Theological Seminary and were, in part, as follows:
"The plain, significant and undisputed fact is that an American citizen
was denied the right of free speech, guaranteed by the constitution of
Massachusetts, and that the authorities failed to protect him. That the
mob was the result of a premeditated plan appears clear from the fact
that the lecturer was not permitted even to begin.
"We want to know whether this sort of thing is to continue, whether it
is possible that we are entering upon an era of Catholic tyranny in
this state, whether henceforth in this state criticism of one church,
and only one, is to be indulged in only at the risk of life and limb.
We demand of the cardinal that he publicly state his attitude and
enforce his authority in such a manner as shall make Catholic mobs
impossible in this state. If the cardinal fails to accede to our
demand, we shall know how to interpret his continued silence and shall
act accordingly.
"We demand that the public authorities bring to justice the leaders of
the mob and that the courts impose suitable punishment. A failure here
will prove the constitution and laws of Massachusetts mere scraps of
paper, and will forever debar our state, the nursery of liberty, from
criticizing those Commonwealths where lynching goes unavenged. We say
this advisedly, for, according to the beliefs of both our fathers and
ourselves, liberty of speech is more precious than life.
"But more than this is required. The only adequate reparation which can
be made for this public outrage is a public atonement. This, to our
mind, should take the form of an arrangement with Mr. Leyden by the
citizens of Haverhill, by which he shall speak in Haverhill on the
topic already advertised, and shall be protected in his rights by the
city and state at any cost. If he then transgresses the laws against
slander or incendiary speech, let him be proceeded against by due
process of law."
PROTESTANT MINISTERS SPEAK
The entire body of the Protestant clergy of Haverhill, thirteen in
number, appeared before Mayor Bartlett and Commissioner Hoyt, on April
7, to protest against the outrage, the inefficiency of the police and
the equally disgraceful failure of the department of justice to ferret
out, arrest and punish the ring leaders of the mob.
The Rev. Nicholas Van der Pyl acted as spokesman for the ministerial
body. In the course of his address he thus voiced the sentiments of the
united Protestant ministry of Haverhill:
"I speak in behalf and by the authority of the entire Protestant clergy of the city of Haverhill.
"We deplore, and we feel indignant about the lawlessness which overran
this city last Monday night. Our city has been disgraced before the
country, and only the people of this city can remove the disgrace which
is ours today.
"We are not bigots. We have the highest charity for all who worship God
in their own way and according to the dictates of their own conscience.
"But we are also American citizens, and we are the accredited
representatives of the morals and religious interests of this city. We
hold inviolable the great principles of freedom of speech and freedom
of the press, subject to the laws of libel and incendiarism, after the
fact, which have been established by all the people, and which only the
people can abrogate.
"A mob has overrun our city. Churches have been broken into and
desecrated by that mob. The homes of unoffending and innocent citizens
have been stoned. In some cases lives have been threatened and placed
in jeopardy. We cannot forget so long as the mob is permitted to be
victorious, and its leaders glowing in the fact that they have trampled
under their feet the most sacred rights of all our people. We will not
forget until the principle of free speech has been impressively
vindicated by the law-abiding element of this community itself"
In point of fact the condition is this, that no ex-Romanist now in the
field in this conflict in this country is granted his or her
constitutional rights by the priests and prelates of the Roman Catholic
church. There is not an ex-Catholic lecturer in the field today who
does not take his or her life in their own hands every time they appear
before an audience. Speaking from personal experience the writer has
had several mobs, one of which was in the Pioneer Congregational church
in Chicago, Illinois, where the following subjects were advertised:
"The Enemy within our borders."
"The Public vs. parochial schools."
"The Suppressed Truth about the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln."
The church early in the evening was surrounded by a mob of about 2,000
Catholics some of whom forced their way in and filled up the
auditorium. After listening for about three quarters of an hour, at a
whistle from the leader of the mob which was the signal to begin,
windows were broken, chairs were smashed, literature torn and scattered
all over the hall. In response to a riot call from the downtown station
(police at that precinct there would not respond) two wagon loads of
officers stepped out, all of whom but one were Knights of Columbus. I
know this because they admitted it to me. Such wide publicity of my
meetings has been given by the local and anti-Roman press of K. of C.
mobs in San Francisco, Sept. 22nd and Sept. 26th, 1921, that it is not
necessary to dwell on them.
Only a few weeks ago we read of the mobs of the meetings of the Baptist
minister, ex-Monk Eli M. Erickson in Chicago, Ill., who speaks upon his
conversion from Romanism to Protestantism. But again the priests of
Rome denied Rev. Erickson his American rights. This mobbing is not
confined to ex-Romanists. That splendid patriotic worker and eloquent
lecturer, Wm. Lloyd Clark, of Milan, Illinois, has, in spite of Rome's
vicious mobs, time without number, held the torch of American
patriotism up for the last thirty-five years. For the most part he was
almost single handed and alone. Mr. Clark has been rotten-egged, shot
at, arrested and jailed, dozens of times, but he has never ceased to
batter at these assassins of Liberty.
In closing, I will leave it to my reader to decide whether I have
proven my contention in the beginning of this book that the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln and four other presidents is but a
part of the great conspiracy which was outlines in the Secret Treaty of
Verona to destroy this the most formidable Republic.
That the execution of this conspiracy in Lincoln's case, was delegated
by the Pope of Rome to the Jesuits aided and abetted by the priests of
Canada and Washington, D.C., in the United States and their lay agents,
the Leopoldines.
That instead of the use of bullets and bayonets, their method has been
and is still, to destroy from within by the subversion of all of the
free institutions upon which this Republic is based.
That the church of Rome has established a separate citizenship to
promote its teachings and by its enormous wealth a large proportion of
which has been obtained by unconstitutional and illegal appropriations
from public funds; that with this wealth (over two and a half billion
dollars worth of church and other religious property, for the most part
exempt from taxation) it has by a system of intimidation and bribery
corrupted our free press and is in control of every avenue of
publicity, so that the American people remain in almost total ignorance
of its pernicious activities, which, if not curbed, will succeed in
accomplishing its object in these United States.
For the further information of the reader, allow me to impress it upon
you, that the present Pope Pius Xlth is the Cardinal Ratti, whom the
late Pope sent to Poland on the express mission of inducing the makers
of the new constitution to restore the Roman church as the State
church, a feat which the gentleman covered himself with papal glory, by
accomplishing, an act no doubt, which earned him the Pontifical throne.
Also remember that Pius XIth stands for just what all popes have stood
for. That he stands against everything Freemasonry and Americanism
represents. Solution—"Put only Americans on guard."
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